Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Political Dog Days

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and his wife, Tonette, had planned to spend a recent Friday night at the Nashua home of Jennifer Horn, the New Hampshire Republican chairwoman.

Then he heard about Al, the Horns’ beloved Dalmatian-Catahoula Leopard mix.

The dinner was promptly moved to a restaurant in nearby Bedford. “The governor’s allergic to dogs,” Ms. Horn said. “And we have a very hairy dog.”

... If the ritual for presidential candidates wooing American voters had a handbook, “must love dogs” would be somewhere near the front.

At the Newseum in Washington, the “First Dogs: American Presidents and Their Pets” exhibit is listed as “on display indefinitely.” On the National Mall, the memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt depicts his Scottish terrier, Fala, forever at his feet. Puppy love in presidential campaigns dates at least to Herbert Hoover, who loosened up his stiff image by posing, paws in hands, with King Tut, his Belgian Malinois, on the way to victory in 1928.